going on vacation until friday. i took zeke over to my parents’ house today, and when i got home the place seemed strangely empty without the cat thundering up and down the hallway, and the emtpy spot when his cat tree normally sits gave me that panicky feeling i mostly associate with moving. the impending move to chicago is beginning to loom; i swing between periods of excitement and the usual anxiety. i just want to stop moving for a while.

lots of coding tweaks to slithy tove this week – the reading list is now functional, and i finally got rid of that annoying javascript error on the index page. more to come.

i interviewed for a job today with a chicago-area theatre. i really really want this job. any surplus good-hiring karma you got lying around would be most appreciated about now.

7.16.03 – Girl Arts

while it’s tempting to copy enjelani‘s recent post and make up a list of why i’ll never be cool, it’s no good because she and i figured out long ago that we’re long-lost-soul-twins or some clich&eacute like that which really just means that she always writes exactly what i was thinking, only better, and so my list would be identical to hers. so, as a corollary: my list of why i’m not very good at being a Girl.

1. lipstick, of any shade, gives me clown mouth.

2. my dress-wearing tolerance is about 3 hours. i just want to wear jeans for the rest of my life.

3. Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality? yeah, that’s me with heels on.

4. i couldn’t care less about VPL (visible panty line, for those of you who haven’t picked up a Cosmo lately). particularly not when the thong alternative makes me feel like i have a wedgie all day long. since when did it have to be a secret that i wear underwear?

5. i still climb trees, i hate pink, and i was always the token female member of the no-girls-allowed clubs.

6. my shopping tolerance is approximately 1/2 of what my dress-wearing tolerance is. after that i become cranky, headachey and feel slightly nauseous until i can leave the mall.

7. regardless of how my hair starts the day, it’s in a ponytail by noon.

8. i actually believe that nylons were invented by men in order to subjugate women. i mean, who can possibly think straight when their legs are encased in tight, sweaty tubes of nylon? no wonder why men still earn more in the workplace.

9. i can shoot the shit with men i work with, but making friends with women intimidates the hell out of me.

10. shirt on, then the deoderant. right. you’d think i’d finally learn.

11. i might have been endowed with feminine wile, but i don’t know how to use it. i bat my eyelashes and someone will ask, “is there something in your eye?”

12. i can actually shower, dress, and be ready to leave the house in under 15 minutes.

13. i really truly don’t care if i never receive a piece of jewelry wrapped up in one of those little blue Tiffany’s bags.

13. a typical day for me is: 10am: get dressed in a skirt. 11am: change back to jeans. noon: notice that my socks don’t match, again. 2pm: spill lunch on my clothes. 4pm: realize that i’ve gone all day without brushing my hair. again.

of course, i’ve been intimidated into attempting all of these Girl Arts on occasion, usually to the entertainment of those around me. and while i have been known to stand on a chair while andy whomps a spider for me, it took my college roommates (fabulous women who are far more sophisticated than i might hope to be) several years to get me to stop wearing baggy t-shirts and men’s jeans every day, to teach me acronyms like VPL and that there IS a difference between the Thetas and the Tri-Delts.

today’s new words for the spell-checker: wedgie, headachey, and Tri-Delts.

7.6.03 – school’s out for summer

Midsummer and Comedy of Errors are both open, which means…summer vacations starts! no more daytime rehearsals, just evening shows. mm, time to sleep in late, watch cartoons, run through the sprinkler…

the other night i dreamt that i had spilled grass seed all over myself, and hadn’t properly dusted it off. several weeks later in the dream, grass seedlings started sprouting from the skin on my stomach. i started pulling the shoots out, one at a time, like splinters, with that same sort of facination/horror one feels while pulling a splinter out from under the uppermost layer of skin. i woke up before i could get all the grass out. i don’t know what the dream experts would have to say about that one. my generalized fear of germs crossed over with thoughts of my summer gardening project?

6.30.03 – open mouth, insert foot

at andy’s parent’s house for his birthday:

andy opens a gift: it’s a new necktie. drab, but fairly non-offensive. “oh, that’s great!” i gush. “i hate all of andy’s ties,” i confide to his mother and sister.

“andy’s ties are all from dave [his father]’s closet.” she replies, “they’re our scottish family’s plaid.”

err. open mouth, insert foot.

6.28.03 – definitions

dive bar:

one in which the waitress plops a half-full can of Hamm’s down on the table and says, “here, this was on that other table. it’s still cold.”

6.22.03 – sweet success

from my veggie garden:

6.23.03 – true colors

yesterday afternoon was a breakthrough with the carey family – spent the afternoon hanging out with andy’s family, and it was the first time in a year that 1) calvin the aged golden retriever didn’t bark at me when i arrived, 2) max the toddler didn’t get shy and refuse to talk around me and 3) mckay the baby didn’t cry when i tried to hold her. see, andy’s parents and siblings might have to pretend they like me, but you can always count on the pets and children to tell you how they really feel. max and i spent quality time together in the sandbox: i taught him to make sandcastles, he taught me to destroy them, then baby mckay cooed and giggled in my lap; i bounced her until she barfed on me. ah, nothing like baby puke to seal one’s ties to one’s (quasi) in-laws.

6.19.03 – free time

the fruit of my unemployed younger brother’s labor.

6.16.03 – the cult of perfectionism

i’ve been having these guilt dreams lately, which seem to be a thinly veiled message from my subconscious to me about being over committed. in the first dream, my childhood friend callie is getting married, and i am a bridesmaid (see the actual wedding). i left just before the wedding, cause i had to get some errands done, and got distracted and missed the wedding completely. in another, i was at the park with some friends. tracy, who recently broke her arm, fell playing soccer and re-injured the broken arm. i offered to take her to the hospital, so i went to get my car, but then i got distracted by some other things on my to-do list, and when i remembered and returned to the park, three hours had passed and someone else had taken her.

i can’t be everything to everyone. the trouble is, i don’t know how to stop. i have this carrot-before-the-donkey sort of syndrome where i’m always sure that if i can just get caught on my to-do list for once, then life will slow down. trouble is, the list just keeps getting longer. how often am i really letting down friends in real life, not just dreams? how can i learn that i’ll never get it just right? or stop wanting everything?